Corruption and Disillusionment in Gabriel Okara’sThe Voice (1964) and Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People (1966): Dialogue and Polemics
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Date
2020
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Mouloud Mammeri University OF Tizi-Ouzou
Abstract
This research examines the portrayal of corruption and disillusionment in post independent
Nigeria from a dialogic perspective. It puts under study Gabriel Okara’s The Voice (1964) and
Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People (1966). To shed light on this study we have borrowed
M. Bakhtin’s theory of Dialogism developed in his work; The Dialogical Imagination: Four
Essays (1981). In this dissertation we have attempted to answer two main questions: How do
Okara and Achebe dialogize concerning corruption and disillusionment? A second intriguing
question is: To what extent does Okara’s The Voice affect Achebe’s A Man of the People in
terms of Dialogism? The outcome of the study has shown that Achebe has stylized Okara
concerning corruption and disillusionment. The two authors are indeed in a constant dialogue
vis-à-vis bribery, violence and social oppression and the anti-system struggle. Both of them
used their antagonists Chief Izongo and Chief Nanga as their primary symbols of corruption
and disillusionment. As a matter of fact, Achebe has been intensively influenced by Okara’s
The Voice which prompted him to re-produce Okara’s work; its context and content, the plot
and the conflict as well as the characters and characterization. Despite the fact that Achebe
was entirely absorbed by Okara’s The Voice, this did not prevent him from making
considerable contributions to his work essentially his protagonist anti-system struggle and the
happy ending of his narrative.
Description
50p. ; 30cm.+(cd)
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Literature and Civilization